Here There Be Dragons
by CannedCream
Summary: Short Story. An entry in Tali's private journal reveals a bit about Tali's childhood and her life aboard the flotilla.


Tali'Zorah's Private Journal

USERNAME: TZorah

PASSWORD: *******

Note:

For private eyes only.

I know you've been trying to hack my journal, Garrus.

Stop it.

Entry # 103:

A slow day today, almost nothing to do down in engineering. Oh, there are a few routine inspections and repairs, but nothing that I haven't done before, and nothing that I couldn't do in my sleep. I find my mind wandering a lot on days like today. The calm of lower deck, the soft hum from the drive core; it all becomes a little hypnotic. It's easy to lose myself in my thoughts if I'm not careful. On most days I'm so heavily engrossed in whatever I do that almost everything gets tuned out, but when things are this slow I just can't help but let my mind go to wherever it wants. I remembered something from when I was just a child on the Rayya. I can't believe I even forgot about it! Funny how memory works like that; how something that once seemed to endlessly important can fade to the back of your mind one day and then be pulled from oblivion the next.

I was twelve, and three months into wearing my first suit, if I remember right. I can't even begin to describe how happy I was to step into that suit for the first time, how adult I felt. Little Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, I thought, all grown-up. I remember looking at my reflection in one of the ship's windows, twirling around and around and trying to see every inch of myself at once. I was so happy then, back when the suit represented freedom rather than a prison.

Sorry, Journal. I'm being gloomy again. I've ranted about this suit to you enough, and that's not the story I wanted to share anyway. The point I was trying to make is that I was young; young and stupid.

Anyway, I had a friend back then; well, maybe she was more of an acquaintance than a friend. We would play together sometimes and we saw one another a lot (which was impossible not to do), but we were never really close. Her name was Rin'Leer and she was the only quarian I personally knew of who had an older sibling; a brother. I can't quite remember his name now, but I believe it was Roheen or at least something close to that. He had returned from his pilgrimage not too long after I stepped out of my bubble for the first time. My memories of the man are sketchy, but what I do know was that he was always the scholarly type. Every time I saw him he was buried into some type of book or another. I suppose, then, that it didn't come as a surprise to anyone when he returned to the flotilla with a Pilgrimage gift of several crates filled to the brim with books; everything from technical manuals, to history texts, to fiction novels. As I remember all of them (or if not all, then close enough to it) were the work of humans. Roheen had insisted that, besides the vast knowledge these tomes could contain, that the best way to understand any species was read their stories. "If it was important enough to be put into written word," he said, "than it is important enough to learn." Translations were made and passed around to anyone who wanted them while the rest were placed within the common-area to be read at leisure.

I was a curious child. I always had to get into everything. I can't even recall the number of times I got into trouble for taking something of my father's apart to see how it worked, and then not being able to put it back together. My solution, of course, wasn't to stop taking apart father's things, but to just get better at fixing them again. So, I guess it's not surprising to find out that I dove strait into those books the moment that I was able. Most of them meant little to a child a twelve. The tech manuals were too big and bulky, the history texts were too dull, and the novels didn't even have pictures. Back then, I didn't understand how this was an appropriate gift at all. It was all so boring!

Then, I remember coming upon this small novel shoved into the bottom corner of the shelf; it was very thin, only a few pages, but as soon as I pulled it out I was greeted by a beautiful cover. On it there was this tall tower made of stone and at the very top there stood this human woman, she was wearing a flowing dress and a tall pointed hat from which some sort of lace flowed from the top of. She was watching the ground below, a look of fear and concern on her face as a human male wearing a strange suit and holding a sword fought with this massive green Earth-beast that breathed fire.

I remember being so fascinated by the man's suit. It vaguely reminded me of our own, but the human's was made of metal and much bulkier. It looked heavy and uncomfortable, and the part that really confused me was that there was no helmet. I didn't understand how that human's enviro-suit could function without one!

I was already transfixed. I remember sitting down on the floor right there and opening up the book, hearing its old spine pop and crackle as I did so. The story told of time on the human home world of Earth long ago as a brave young man called a 'knight' rode off to rescue a captured 'princess' from the top of the tallest tower in the land where she was being kept hostage by a fierce beast called a 'dragon'.

The idea of dragons scared me so badly back then; it even gave me a few nightmares. I remember thinking that, if creatures such as that lived on Earth, it was no wonder humanity fled to the stars. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how old I was before I discovered that dragons never actually existed, though it was a bit of a relief and a bit of a disappointment as well.

The ending was the best part and it touched me in a strange way that I've never felt before. At the conclusion, the knight has an epic battle against the beast and slays it by stabbing it through the heart with his sword. He then climbs to the top of the tower, opens the door, and goes to the girl. They wrap their arms around each other and they kissed.

I never saw a real kiss before in my life. I had heard of such a thing, yes, but I'd never seen one, but sitting right before me was this colored drawing of the man and woman with lips embraced. I stared at that picture for what felt like hours; wondering why they were kissing, why it was so important to humans, how it must feel to have someone else's skin touch your own.

As a quarian the one thing that you are taught over and over again in your youth is how important it was to stay inside of your suit or your bubble. The open world, we are told, is far too dangerous to venture into unprotected. The chances of death by infection are far too high. "Head to the medical bay if you ever feel adventurous," one of my teachers used to preach "See firsthand what open-air expose can do to our kind. Look at it and ask yourself if it the reward is truly worth the risk."

Before that day there was no question in my mind about the risks. I swore to myself then that I would never ever take the suit off of anything or anyone, not even in the clean rooms. I was young and I was scared, Journal, but there was something about that silly little picture. It made me question things. I was only in my suit for a few months by that point, but I think that was the first time that the idea that it really was a prison I wore around my skin began to take root.

I did something then that I still feel guilty about to this day; I stole the book. The second thing we're taught as children is how everything on the flotilla is shared. No one thing is owned by individual, but by group. You had your suit and you had your mate, but everyone else was to be shared, even our beds weren't our own. They were used in shifts. Yet despite all of that I felt as though I needed to have this book, like I deserved it somehow. The idea of anyone else touching it; someone who might draw on the pictures, or rip the pages, or worse: lose it, sacred me to death. At the time this novel was more like a holy relic than a stupid fairytale. So, looking around like the thief that I was, I tucked the book under my arm and quickly left from the common-area.

There was this air vent on the lowest level of the ship. I discovered it mere days after getting my suit (as I said; I was a child filled with endless curiosity). The grate was loose and could easily be pulled out enough to make an opening big enough for me to get through. Can you guess what I did, Journal? I stuffed the book into its shadows and hid it there from the rest of the flotilla. Every chance I got I would sneak back down and crawl into this grate where I would sit and read this human fairytale over and over again. I spent so long looking at that last picture that the image almost burned into my young brain. When I closed my eyes I could so clearly bring up that image of the man and woman engaged in romantic gesture that I might as well have been holding the book in my fingers at all times.

What I was doing was wrong, I knew that, but there was something about the whole blasphemy of it all that excited me. I knew that I would have to give it up at some point; that sooner or later this secret of mine had to end. I just wasn't prepared for how soon it happened.

I suppose children of every species somehow get it into their head that they're so much smarter then the adults. I don't know what causes this phenomenon, but what I do know is that it is always incorrect. Oh keelah, I thought that I was being so crafty back then, so sneaky, but keeping a secret of any kind aboard the Fleet is next to impossible even for the best of us. I was being watched, you see. One of the engineers began to notice how often the Admiral's daughter was walking around on the lower deck and started getting curious. To this day I don't know exactly what happened, but I suppose it would be safe enough to assume that he saw me either enter or exit my little private hideout and went to investigate.

Next thing I know I'm being confronted by my very angry father. He's holding the book, what I came to think of as my book, in his hands and shaking it at me every few words or so to really drive home his point. I remember my eyes following it with every movement; I was so scared that at any moment the pages might begin to fall out.

Father tells me that he can't believe that any quarian, let alone his own daughter, could act to selfishly, that I could so casually put my own desires above the good of the Fleet. He tells me that we're a family, that we all need to think of the needs each other and not just ourselves. I knew all of this, but it was the book that I cared about just then; the book with its magnificent world and beautiful pictures. That was all I wanted. I tried denying my actions at first, and this just made father angrier. I then tried to reason with him, and he wouldn't subscribe to this either. By the end of it all I was practically begging to keep the book.

"Enough," I remember father saying, his cold tone cutting through me as he thumbed through the story's few pages. "Is this what humans tell their young? Disgraceful." He snapped the book closed with an audible clap and tucked it under his arm as if it were nothing of value at all, like a piece of trash to be tossed away later. "Perhaps humanity allows the minds of their children to rot with such garbage, but we do not have such luxuries. You need to learn a lesson about placing the needs of others before yourself, Tali'Zorah, and you need to be punished for what you've done as well. I'm going to ask around, find some sort of work detail for you. Perhaps that will teach how important it is for a quarian to remain rational, not filling their minds with such junk." Father took the book back out from under his arm and turned it over in his hand, looking at it as if it were something he pulled off the bottom of his shoe.

"What I should do is throw this into the incinerator. Perhaps it will find better use as tinder."

That was when I really did begin to beg. I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around his leg and pleaded with him to not do that, to not destroy the novel. I remember father looking from me to the book and then back again. Finally, with a heavy sigh, he agreed not to burn it, but I was to never be caught with this story in my possession again or else it really would be tossed into the incinerator. Through thick and heavy tears I agreed, and I did as I was told. I never once touched that book again while aboard the Rayya. I supposed that, over time, I even forced myself to forget about it. It hurt too much to remember it, I suppose. That last picture displaying two so deeply and feely in love, able to touch and kiss at a moment's notice without fear; that was something I wasn't strong enough to handle.

Funny how I can suddenly recall all of this now. The memory is so clear, but the heartache and pain that I expected to come with it are only ghosts of what they once were. I can still feel it in a small way I suppose, but it has become so muted. I suppose time is a factor in this (it is supposed to heal all wounds, correct?), but I highly doubt it's the only reason why these words don't hold the same sting they would have only a few months ago. In fact, I think I know the real reason why.

Anyway, I need to stop here for now. Shepard's entered the engine room and even through he's talking with Ken and Gabby, his eyes keep darting over to me. There's something he wants to talk about I suppose, and when he walks over I want to be ready to greet him.

Shepard, who rode in on his mighty steed 'Normandy', defeated the dragon Colossus, and rescued me from the stone room in which I waited.

I must go now, Journal. My knight approaches.

-Tali'Zorah vas Normandy


End file.
